Climate Change

By Mark J. Lara, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | – Across the Arctic, strange things are happening to the landscape. Massive lakes, several square miles in size, have disappeared in the span of a few days. Hillsides slump. Ice-rich ground collapses, leaving the landscape wavy where it once was flat, and in some locations […]

Agriculture

More Heat, Less Water: Climate Emergency Pushes Iraq’s Farmers off Land as Drought cripples Crops

Middle East Monitor

( Middle East Monitor ) – Until a few years ago, farming in southern Iraq was “as lucrative as oil”, Qasim Abdul Wahad remembers, and his one-hectare farm plot in the Governorate of Basra produced enough to feed his family of eight. Now dust kicks up under his feet as he walks through his land, […]

Agriculture

The Climate Emergency is Stressing Plants, Making them Less Productive

The Conversation

By Souleïmen Jmii, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) | – Plants that inhabit the Earth have the incredible ability to grow continually for hundreds of years, and always towards the light of the sun, which provides them with the necessary energy to sprout. At the source of this growth are changes in their environment, […]

Agriculture

IPCC report: We can’t Meet Climate Goals, without Deeply Slashing our CO2 Emissions

The Conversation

Jack Marley | – The world has the means to avert the greatest ravages of global heating – but we must deploy them immediately, while eliminating the fuels and activities that threaten to warm Earth beyond safe levels. This is the conclusion of a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a […]

Climate Crisis

Responsibility for the Invasion of Ukraine and for Climate Change

Paul Clements

Kalamazoo, MI (Special to Informed Comment) – Many are rightly celebrating a resurgence of liberalism as the Free World rallies against Putin’s war of choice. We honor brave Ukrainians fighting for freedom. Pride surges for democratic governments incurring great costs, with skillful and cooperative leadership countering immense and unjustified harm to innocents and arrogant violation […]

Climate Crisis

White House OMB: Climate Crisis to cost US $2 trillion Each and Every Year in 8 Decades

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Timothy Gardner at Reuters has gotten an advance look at a White House Office of Management and Budget document that concludes that by the end of this century, when Olivia Rodrigo would be 100 if she has the long life we wish for her, the annual cost of the climate […]

Climate Crisis

Even Oil-Rich UAE admits its Green Energy saved it nearly $200 billion, as it builds World’s Largest Solar Farm

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Even the energy minister of the United Arab Emirates, the world’s eighth largest oil producer, has admitted that the steps so far taken in the small Gulf country toward green energy have saved it $191 billion. The UAE gets about 7% of its electricity from solar panels, saving on the […]

Arab World

Climate Crisis: Middle East is Heating up Twice as Fast as Global Average

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Christoph Duenwald et al. at the International Monetary Fund have a new report out that finds that temperatures in the Middle East and Central Asia have already risen by 2.7 degrees F. (1.5C) over the past century, at a rate twice as fast as that of the rest of the […]

Climate Crisis

Recycling Solar Panels is the Future of Sustainability: One Company is ahead of the Game

Cronkite News Arizona PBS

By Hope O’Brien | ( Cronkite News ) – YUMA – Tucked between warehouses near the airport, We Recycle Solar is repurposing, reusing and recycling the growing supply of panels that have passed their expected lifespan of 30 years. Through multiple processes, the company refurbishes salvageable solar photovoltaic panels and breaks down worn-out panels into […]